Pardew Concentrating On Spurs Game – And Yohan Cabaye

Newcastle fans will take a particular interest in the game tomorrow night at the Stade de France in Paris, where France will be taking on Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Euro 2012 qualifiers.

Yohan Cabaye – in action for France

France currently head Group D with 20 points from their 9 games, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are in second place, just one point behind France from their 9 games played.

This is the final game of qualifying, and if France can draw or win tomorrow night they will reach the finals next summer, but a win by Bosnia and Herzegovina will see them through to the finals to be held in Poland and Ukraine.

That’s not particularly what Newcastle fans will be interested in of course, and it’s all about whether Newcastle’s top midfielder, Yohan Cabaye will be fit to play for France tomorrow night.

Yohan left the game against Luxemburg last Thursday evening after 48 minutes with a sore left ankle, but a scan he had on the ankle on Saturday showed no particular damage to the ligaments, which was very good news.

And France comfortably won at Luxemburg by a score 2-0.

The game tomorrow night is obviously very crucial for France, and Newcastle manager Alan Pardew will be holding his breath a little, to see if Cabaye starts for France tomorrow night, as there’s still a question right now whether he is really fit to play tomorrow night.

We’d be very happy if Yohan is rested and not even included in the French squad for the game.

But of course Yohan would love to play for his country in such an important game, and that’s hardly surprising, and he has expressed that desire over the weekend, so we’ll just have to wait and see what France manager Laurent Blanc decides about Cabaye.

The Newcastle manager is working towards preparing his troops for the tough game against Spurs on Sunday afternoon, and obviously Alan will want one of Newcastle’s best players, Yohan Cabaye available for that game.

It could also be a sell-out at St. James’ Park for the game against the top north London side, and of course the Newcastle crowd is always a great benefit for the players.

And some of the new lads have been a little astonished at the atmosphere generated by the football-mad Geordies.

This is what Alan Pardew told the local Newcastle press today:

“The home games are very special with Newcastle.” “The new players could not believe what a great atmosphere there is in the stadium.”

“It was a great feeling to get a nice ovation in the last home game.” “We can only thank the fans and try to get more wins for them.”

“Our home form is very important to us this season.”

We just have to hope that after all the International games are finished tomorrow night, the Newcastle players are all fit and well, and can return to Newcastle and take part in training on Thursday morning, as the lads prepare for their toughest test in the league so far this season.

I’m not really concerned if Cabaye or Tiote is out as long as not both of them at the same time. We are very very strong at midfield, many good players can replace one of them. PS: I still hope Smith do well.

I can’t see we buy any striker in January with Sammy doing better than our target rumours. I f we do buy a striker, it will be Macheda. He will ask for transfer request and we’ll buy him for 2m. When African Cup starts, this could be our formation: ———————–Krul————————- Simo —— Saylor —–Colo ——-Santon ——————-Cabaye———————- Jonas —-HBA———Vuckic—-Marv —————–Sammy——————–

A little early for Sammy yet Redondo and certainly not in place of Best or Ba if they are fit. Sammy will get chances, like Ranger did last year but only a few minutes at a time. Otherwise not a bad lineup, although Vuckic probably similar to Sammy in terms of appearances. Not a starter this season.

Why are Sammy and Vuckic too early? I think Rooney was much younger than them and Owen when they were playing for England for the 1st time. Sammy and Vuckic is at the same skill as Rooney and Owen, I think.

Me too. Spurs CBs, won’t be able to cope with the movement, hustling and aggression of Ba and Best, in my opinion; especially King, he’s mega slow and likes to remain pretty stationery, relying on his positioning.

Our front two have being exploiting space, left by FBs bombing forward, really well this season, which drags CBs out of position.

Their midfield likes time too. We all know about Parker and his compulsion, for wriggling around with the ball. Cabaye and Tiote are great at rushing players and panicking them into mistakes.

Don’t think so redondo. Vuckic has barely played over the last 2 seasons due to injuries and Sammy is a very raw talent. Neither one is in the class of Rooney or Owen as teenagers. Give both of them another year or two to develop and if they stay relatively injury free maybe we can begin to see what we have but don’t start thinking Owen and Rooney because you will likely be disappointed.

MMBP’s…..Best’s movement?! Are you kidding? That’s one of his major weaknesses and why he gets caught offside so often….his lateral movement along the line is poor a lot of the time and he needs to work on that aspect of his game as well as his variable touch…that’s my humble opinion but also one that the great Trappatoni also pointed out last week.

@27 our defense has been a bit lucky so far and Krull is amazing. our midfield sometimes can be too casual and gave the ball cheaply. I hope we have luck, Krull do well, and our midfield not give the ball cheaply. All football teams need luck and got lucky, but it seems that others not happy if we got lucky and wishing we go down.

I haven’t see a single person on here saying they wish we go down redondo. Not meaning to pick fault with you but people have different opinions about the club. I think we’re off to a great start and hope it continues. A win against Spurs would be fantastic. Realistically we could finish between 8th and 12th this season mainly because we are so thin as a squad, as Pardew has said many times. We are 3 or 4 players away from being solid top 8 contenders I would think.

health update

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in February 2017 and completed four months of chemotherapy in late July and will continue to have hormone treatment.

After having various cat scans and a full bone scan recently, I met with the medical oncologist yesterday for a review of my condition.

The cancer in the bones has stabilized and has not spread further, and my PSA count has decreased significantly to being less than 0.1.

I am still recovering from some of the side effects of the chemo treatment - mainly severe fatigue and exhaustion.

Stage 4 cancer is not curable so I will continue to have cat scans and bone scans every four months to ensure the disease is not spreading.

Hopefully, the hormone treatment will keep working for a while yet and then we will switch to some other treatments that have been developed over the last few years.

It is as it is - I accept it - and will do the very best I can under the circumstances.

Ed Harrison

Comments

The purpose of the comments is to allow Newcastle United fans and others to express their views on the news of the day concerning the Newcastle United Football Club.

In general, we'd ask you to be civil towards other readers and refrain from obscene language and any comments on religion, ethnic groups or politics.

The key to all of this is to be respectful to other readers in expressing your opinion.

Please let's make this work - and let's help the Newcastle United Football Club become great again.

That's all we ask, and why we created this site in the first place back in 2007.

Ed Harrison

Kacper Tylenda Website Designer

One of our avid readers Kacper Tylenda from Poland was the person who came in during April, 2017 and redesigned this web-site from top to bottom.

We think he did a fantastic job to modernize the site with the roll-out on Thursday May 18th surprisingly smooth.

I am so appreciative of his help.

Kacper is starting his own business in web-design so if you want a website built or know of people who want to redo their sites in any way – here’s his portfolio.

football club

It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.